The First Black Female Republican Senator?

Saratoga Springs, Utah, Mayor Mia Love is running not just for the state's Senate seat, but to change history, though she says that isn't her focus. Thus far, the Senate has no black female Republican members, but the Nov. 6 election could change all of that if Love, a Tea Party darling, is elected. According to the Daily News, while the race is still very close, polls show Love demonstrates a small lead over her six-time incumbent competitor, Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson.

"I was elected mayor not because of my race or gender, not because I wear high heels, but because of the policies I put in place," Love said in a recent interview ...

In a party that has struggled for decades to attract black voters, the daughter of Haitian immigrants included subtle nods to civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks in her speech to the Republican National Convention in August ...

Love has made much of her family story, a hallmark of her stump speeches: Her parents legally immigrated to Brooklyn in the early 1970s, she says, with just $10 in their pockets. She says her father - who has toiled as a painter, janitor and school bus driver - taught her never to ask for a handout. Her parents became naturalized U.S. citizens in 1984. A married mother of three, a Mormon and a tea party favorite, Love is the only woman among 11 black Republican House candidates in the Nov. 6 election. She and Vernon Parker, who is running in Arizona, are seen as the most likely winners among nine black GOP challengers.